Race & Age Categories
Plan your progression pathway
The category system from 4th cat to Elite....
The Wheelers have always maintained a welcoming environment for a cyclist to start, or restart a racing career. Starting road racing as a 4th category rider some of our members have risen up the ranks via 3rd category and raced as 1st and 2nd category riders or even held an elite licence.
From the 1980’s there were many successes in developing Junior riders who progressed to racing teams and beyond. Olympia Sport was the semi-pro team in the 80’s & 90’s that progressed the careers of Jason White (JD Cycles) and Andy Lyons (Richardson's Trek Directeur Sportif) who was later joined at Stilton RT by Dean Shannon. This pathway still exists today.
Jason is the only rider to have won 3 of our 4 perpetual open race Trophies (Aspirants Trophy, Lesley Lodemore Cup and the Andrews Trophy). Only the Norman Wells Trophy has eluded him!
We are delighted that Andy and Dean are now the Directeur Sportifs for Richardsons Trek Elite team and continue to look to the Wheelers to provide continuing generations of elite riders. More recently Simon Alexander, George Wood and James Jenkins have all enjoyed Elite success in the 2010’s and 20’s.
A more recent racing phenomenon is the advent of coach led racing teams, one of which is run by our very own Paul Hart who under the yellow and black colours of the Wheelers smashed the 50-mile national TT record in 2018 as well as resetting all the Club TT records from 10 to 100 miles.
Paul is a L3 coach improving local and national racing talent, and he provides fee based bespoke training via Hart Performance Coaching, (HPC) for those wanting to take their training and performance to the next level.
Masters/Veterans
Calling all the MAMILs (and MAWIL’s if they exist?) out there ….
British Cycling National Masters starts at 30 years for men and women at National level and at 35 years at World level.
Both the Veterans Time Trial Association (VTTA) and British Masters Cycle Racing (BMCR) cater for riders of 40 years +. Entry to BMCR events is via RiderHQ.
The Wheelers have a huge amount of experience in racing in age related events, whether that’s road or track or TTs.
The Wheelers are proud to have Bob Barber as a world masters team pursuit champion.
Whatever discipline and age group a new Wheeler wants to try, there is likely to be another Wheeler who has been there and done that, or is still doing it!
Our club time trials have age categories and age-related course records to beat, so the challenge is out there should you wish to accept it. Riders over 40 can also gain age standard awards in TT's.
Senior Men & Women
Typically aged 18-40 years old this cohort are the group that progress from Junior Level through to Elite level.
Start road racing as a 4th category rider and finish high enough up the field and you get points on your racing licence, enough points and the following season you become a 3rd cat rider with the races being faster and further in distance. Once a 3rd cat, you can't drop back to 4th!
Keep going and see if you can gain a 1st cat licence or even elite status.
The club time trials programme is where good natured but tough competition takes place.
Wheelers women make up 32% of the membership, and we want to grow this percentage. From juniors to veterans our women members compete in every aspect of the sport from Track, cyclo cross, time trials, triathlon, sportives as well as Audax events.
Always keen to encourage more women into the sport we actively support the women’s festival of cycling and we have a breeze champion in the Club to encourage more women to do group riding.
Talk to any of our women club members about racing TTs or club runs, and they will ensure you are pointed in the right direction whether you are an experienced rider or new to cycling.
Junior/Youth
Junior members are 16-18 years old and Youth members are under 16 years old.
There are Junior and Youth leagues within the Club time trial programme, and perpetual trophies for both categories. There are awards on the track, circuit racing and cyclo cross.
We are actively looking to grow our under 18's membership and find new talent to race and develop as riders so that when they are old enough they can feed into the elite programme. Antoine Rouyer-Brown is the club's junior/youth members rep.
We need parental consent for riders of this age to join us on a club run and ask that parents are active in the clubs’ events to support their child in what we hope will start a life-long love of cycling and increase your child’s skills and confidence on the bike.